The Calligrapher — Huáng Dàozhōu 黄道周

Ming loyalist whose upright regular script matched his character.

Ming calligrapher (1585–1646), master of regular script/running script — late-Ming loyalist martyr whose compressed, stormy script mirrors his life. Ming dynasty

Cultural Story

缨 was the tassel and ribbon of ceremony: the 冠缨 that fastened a gentleman's cap, the red tassel on a spear's haft. 汉书 tells of young 终军 asking the emperor for 长缨 — a long cord — to bind the King of Southern Yue and bring him to court. 请缨 ever since has meant volunteering for the hardest mission.

Common words & phrases

• 红缨 red tassel
• 请缨 request to serve
• 长缨 long tassel
• 缨子 tassel
• 冠缨 cap tassel

Read the story behind the character

The tassel is decorative; the spirit is workplace slang. When the boss asks who will rescue the failing client, someone 请缨s (requests to serve): 我来. Martial-arts students tie 红缨 (red tassels) on their spears, costume dramas flash 长缨 (long tassel) across the screen, and graduation caps still swing a tassel that is, in spirit, a 缨子.

Why this character belongs on skin

A tassel is decoration with a destination: the silk cord 缨 that hung from a horse's bridle or a scholar's cap, swinging with every stride, announcing movement before the wearer spoke. The character wears its silk radical like a ribbon in the hair. In the old world the 缨 marked rank—a red tassel on a general's helmet, a cap-string at court—and it carried one of the most quoted vows in Chinese letters: 请缨, to request the tassel, meaning to volunteer for the hardest mission, as the young scholar Zhong Jun did, asking for a long rope with which to bind the enemy king himself. That is the hidden steel in this pretty word: the frill that means volunteering. You know the feeling—hand rising before the room is ready, heart offering itself for the task everyone else hopes someone else will take. Ink this character and you wear the volunteer's cord: beauty with a purpose knotted into it, a tassel that swings only when you step forward first.